Five Times: breaking down
by Misgiving Writer
Summary: Four times, Robbie was able to struggle through. He ignored the looks of his peers and the scorn from the teachers. Did his best to keep moving, keep going, never looked back. One time, it wasn't that easy.


A/N: Welp, this is something I found hidden away in one of my many un-named folders. It was written roughly last summer, right after I first started watching this series. So, uh, it isn't my current style but it works. Hope you enjoy it!

* * *

THE FOUR TIMES THAT HE DIDN'T BREAK DOWN:

1.

Robbie could feel their eyes on him as he walked down the halls of Hollywood Arts. The school had sent him a last minute acceptance letter just the week before and today, August twenty eigth, was his first day there. And, just out of his second class of the day, Robbie could tell that no one there liked him.

It was because of Rex.

It was _always_ because of Rex.

Everytime his Aunt sent him to a new school, moved him to a new neighborhood, Rex attracted stares. Or maybe it wasn't Rex. Maybe it was himself that those disgusted looks were being sent too; because that wouldn't be the first time that they stared at him like that, like he was just dirt on the bottom of their shoes. It wouldn't be the last time either.

Robbie knew this. Knew that even at a school for the artistically inclined lugging a puppet around with you every where wasn't normal. But it wasn't like he could just leave Rex at home, not with what the wooden doll really meant and did, so he kept his head down as he walked.

Ignored the girls when they laughed as he passed them.

Ignored the boys that 'bumped' into him.

And when he walked into Improvised Acting class for the first time, saw everyone's heads spin to look at him because he'd gotten lost earlier and was a few minutes late, he _forced_ himself not to feel ashamed when it was Rex that spoke first and not him.

* * *

2.

Just a puppet, they all said. Just a puppet and a hobby that Robbie, by all rights, should have grown out of by now.

Even his 'friends' thought it was weird. What sixteen year-old boy, almost a man, would carry a doll around with him all day. But they didn't get what Rex really was and what his words really meant; which was horrible because how could they claim to be his friends and still just look over all the times that Rex sent vicious insult after barbed name at Robbie?

They didn't know that the slurrs against himself got worse when no one was around.

That the names Rex called himself when he was at home, in what should have been a safe haven, were things that not even the most vicious of bullies had called him.

And that every last syllable out of Rex's mouth was truetrue_true_!

Rex was a shield for Robbie, keeping the outside world _outside_ and away from him. Kept him almost completely safe. Made the nightmares disapear and the burning images in his mind dull. Rex means more to Robbie than his Aunt Chrissie, who had raised him since he was barely seven, meant to him.

So when he went to lunch late one day and heard Jade and Tori and Andre laughing over the little puppet and poking fun at Robbie for always carrying him...It sent an ache through his chest that was always so hard to ignore. But he bit his lip, adjusted his grip on the precious object, _friend_, cradled in his arms, and went back inside the school.

Robbie started eating lunch in the library that year.

No one asked him why.

* * *

3.

It's his third year attending Hollywood Arts. The call into Lane's office isn't expected and, certaintly, isn't welcome.

Several people, Jade and Trina included, glare at him when Sicowitz calls their practice to a stop. Andre laughs and asks what Robbie did wrong; and a jolt of fear goes through him because he couldn't actually remembering doing anything but something _big_ must have happened to be called up to the guidance counciler's office. Beck sends him a worried glance that Robbie doesn't actually see.

As he walks to the office, he tugs Rex closer to his chest. The puppet's head rests on his shoulder, the wood cold against his suddenly clammy skin. The few students wondering through the halls, most of them probably having ditched their last class or were ditching their next one, rolled their eyes at him.

Rex is strangely silent during the trip. That's probably why it comes as almost a surprise, almost a relief, when he speaks just after Robbie enters the room. "Alright, teach, what did nerd-boy here do?"

And Lane doen't say anything right away. That only makes Robbie more nervous. Lane's usually such a cheery guy, even when Rex is concerned. He thinks it's because the older man knows why Rex means so much to him; something that his Aunt was very insistant about being told to at least one of the adults that worked at the school.

"Did I...Did I do something wrong?" Robbie asked. And his voice shook slightly because he knew he had to have. After all, if he hadn't done anything, he wouldn't have been called. Right?

Lane shook his head, gesturing to one of the chairs. "Maybe you should have a seat, Robbie."

"Maybe you should just tell us why we were called up here." Rex countered, voice just as snarky as it always was.

And the counciler let out a sigh, rubbing the side of his face with one hand. "It was your Aunt, Robbie. There was an accident and...She didn't make it. I'm so, so sorry."

Robbie's tounge felt like cardboard and niether he nor Rex said anything. But he shook his head when Lane asked him if he wanted to talk, instead asking to go back to class.

When he left the room, Rex called him pathetic.

* * *

4.

It was amazing that, even though he'd already spoken to both Cat and Tori, no one had commented on his face yet. Robbie had looked into the mirror of his old, beat-up car before he came into the school. He knew just how bad it looked; one eye surrounded in a dark bruise, his lip split and swollen, both cheeks darkened where he'd been hit.

And no one had said anything about it. Not even Sicowitz, whom Robbie had seen in the hall earlier! It should have been surprising. Really, though, it just hurt.

"Why?" Rex badgered. "You really expect any of 'em to care you got the shit beat out of you? 'Cause I sure didn't!"

Robbie didn't even bother to tell the puppet to 'shut up'. It wasn't like Rex ever listened when he did. And it wasn't like Rex was wrong, either. The puppet was almost never wrong, especially not when it came to how people viewed Robbie.

Shifting the wooden doll around in his arms, so that Rex's head wasn't leaning against the large bruise on his collar-bone, Robbie let his shoulders droop and kept on down the hallway. Even if he didn't get called on very much, and was usually degraded when he did, Robbie didn't want to be late for Improvised Acting class.

* * *

AND ONE TIME HE DID:

1.

Robbie wasn't even sure what he was doing in the bathroom anymore. Crying, sure. With the red puffy eyes and the hot tear tracks running down his face, biting his lip to stop himself from actually _sobbing_ out loud, the whole deal. He looked like a wreck, and Rex was overjoyed to point that fact out.

He just didn't know why he was in there crying.

"Because you're a pathetic loser, that's why." Rex threw out from his perch on the sink. The puppet's mouth didn't actually move but Robbie could still hear his voice, right there in the back of his mind.

It was true. And maybe that had something to do with why he was in there that day. Because he was pathetic and a loser and no one really liked him and, sometimes, knowing that got to be too much. Sometimes, he couldn't help but just loose it and cry.

Even if nothing particularly bad had happened to him that day. Nothing out of the norm, just the usual insults that were slung at him during his days at Hollywood Arts. It was just that everything had built up in him for so long and today was the day it chose to come flooding out.

And, like every time before this when he finally couldn't hold it in, Robbie was alone. There were no friends. There were no teachers. He had no family. It was just himself, crying in a bathroom for a reason he didn't know, and Rex.

Always Rex and always, _always_, alone.


End file.
